It's rare that I don't finish a book - even when I'm not enjoying a book, I still aim to finish it, I just don't like to leave something unfinished in any facet of my life - but such is the case with Cries in the Drizzle. I picked it to read for the Around the World in 12 Books Challenge in Octob...
He loitered in Japan for more than two months, during which time he amassed 3,567 tons of discarded "junk suits." These so-called junk suits looked brand-new, had impeccable tailoring, and fit just as well as the Italian-made Armani suits Baldy Li would later wear. The Japanese sold these old sui...
“Yang Fei…” The sound seemed to have traveled an immense distance. It lingered as it reached me, then faded like a sigh. I looked around but could not make out from which direction it had come. All I was conscious of was the name winging its way toward me in fragments. “Yang Fei…Yang Fei…” It see...
The school was made up of only two buildings, and the kids were inside muttering and babbling as they studied. As I approached one building I saw Youqing. He was in the classroom all the way at the end, where a woman teacher stood at the blackboard talking about something or other. I stood outsid...
She made herself a new pair of gray cotton pants and a light blue cotton-padded jacket embroidered with dark blue flowers. Yile, Erle, and Sanle each got a new cotton-padded jacket as well. Xu Sanguan was the only one in the family who didn’t get any new clothes, because every time Xu Yulan thoug...
That’s the thing about this word: it feels remote, but it’s so familiar, too.I can’t think of another expression in the modern Chinese language that is such an anomaly—ubiquitous yet somehow invisible. In China today it’s only officials who have “the people”* on their lips every time they open th...
My wife and I were sitting in front of a rattling electric fan. I held the remote in my hand and changed the channels one by one, and then ran through them again in reverse sequence. My back was soaked in sweat and I was in an irritable mood. My wife, on the other hand, was quite composed, sittin...